Saturday, October 4, 2014

American Exceptionalism!

"Apparently, this woman doesn't know that one of the most exceptional historical facts about America was that we were last Western nation to outlaw slavery by a long shot. And I'd guess she missed class the day they discussed that little dust-up from 1860 to 1865. (Of course, it's always possible that like so many wingnuts she has thinks the civil war wasn't about slavery at all. It's just a coincidence that the country "voluntarily ended it" after over half a million people died over the most important moral cause humankind has ever known: states' rights.

This is why you need teacher's unions and tenure. When people like this take over school boards (and this isn't the first time) they will happily fire anyone who teaches evolution and refuses to teach the kids that the US "voluntarily ended slavery.""

Emphasis added. If it was their own ignorance, I could live with it. But the belligerent willfulness of the ignorance, and the insistence that our youth be indoctrinated with feel-good truthiness is truly dangerous.